The Royal Shakespeare
Company's new
touring Hamlet is an ideal introduction to the play for those who
have never seen it.

It is clean, it is clear,
and it has enough novel
elements to attract and hold the attention of audiences who would not
ordinarily choose a Shakespeare play.

It has less to offer
Hamlet
veterans, however. Despite the surface novelties, there is little in
the way of staging or performances to illuminate the play or suggest
fresh interpretation or insight.

Director Simon Godwin and
designer
Paul Wills have set the play in a modern African kingdom, with an
almost entirely Afro-Caribbean cast.

Costumes are European with
just
the touch of the exotic (colourful headwear for the women, military
finery for the men), the younger characters prefer casual
Americanised clothes, and ceremonial drumming punctuates the more
formal scenes. (Casting actresses to play Guildenstern, Osric and a
few minor characters as women has little effect.)

Throughout the play
the emphasis in speaking is on clarity. Bits of exposition and
backstory are explained very slowly, and even the soliloquies are
structured and paced to allow us to follow Hamlet's thought processes
without losing the thread.

What the director has
clearly chosen to
sacrifice to this end is any depth of emotion or complexity of
characterisation, and any exploration of the play's metaphysical and
philosophical subtexts.

Paapa Essiedu's Hamlet is
an attractive and
manly youth without very much in the way of intellect or passion. 'To
be or not' goes by almost unnoticed as a bit of incidental thought,
and even the more passionate soliloquies are emotions of the moment –
only briefly in 'rogue and peasant slave' do we get a sense of real
anguish.

The other characters are
even less developed. Clarence
Smith's Claudius is so controlled and formal that his more open
villainy late in the play comes as a bit of surprise, while Lorna
Brown is given little more to do as Gertrude than wear a succession
of elegant gowns elegantly.

Given the choice between a
dangerously
political Polonius and a dottering fool, Joseph Mydell does neither,
and the strongest impression you are likely to get of Mimi Ndiweni is
that she sings much better than most Ophelias, bringing a
not-inappropriate blues tone to the mad scenes.

To the credit of
director and actors, the over-three-hours running time moves by
swiftly, the text being trimmed here and there for clarity rather
than being heavily cut (Noticeable omissions include Polonius's
instructions to Reynaldo on how to spy on his son, the dumb show, and
some of Hamlet's reaction to Yorick.)

Much of the rest is a
matter of
incidental bits rather than coherent interpretation. The first act is
extended to the middle of the prayer scene with Hamlet poised to kill
Claudius, leaving him the interval in which to decide whether to do
it pat (Spoiler alert: he doesn't).

The director has Hamlet
take up
painting in his spare time, creating large canvasses of monsters and
displaying his supposed madness by wandering around the formal court
in paint-spattered clothes.

Rosencrantz and
Guildenstern are more
obsequiously toadying than usual, and Horatio more invisible than
usual. In one thought-provoking touch Gertrude reports on Ophelia's
death in a wet dress, suggesting that she attempted to save the
drowning girl, and the climactic duel is not with swords but with
wooden sticks.

The RSC is to be commended
for making the play so
accessible and for touring it to fresh venues like the Hackney
Empire, and every new convert it brings to the play is a full
justification. But if you've ever seen the play before there is
little real reason to see this version.